Ackee
A self-hosted website analytics service focused on aggregate visits, referrers, durations, views, and tracked actions.
Why consider Ackee?
Ackee is a privacy-first, self-hosted website analytics tool based on Node.js and MongoDB.
Learn Ackee by building
Practical setup notes, real use cases, and copy-ready examples in one focused guide.
In this guide4 sections
Ackee: Privacy-First Website Analytics
Ackee is a self-hosted analytics tool based on Node.js that focuses on privacy and provides a minimal interface. For organizations and developers who want to understand their website traffic without compromising user privacy, Ackee provides a modern, lightweight alternative to large-scale marketing platforms. It uses a multi-step anonymization process to ensure that individual users cannot be identified. Because it does not use cookies for unique user tracking, it operates without requiring a cookie consent banner.
Architecture and Requirements
The system consists of two primary components: a central server that processes data and serves the dashboard, and a client-side script embedded on the websites you want to monitor. To collect data, you add a small tracking script to your websites, which works similarly to the snippet provided by Google Analytics.
The backend is built with Node.js and uses MongoDB for data storage. Running the application requires a working MongoDB database instance. The platform exposes a fully documented GraphQL API, allowing developers to build custom applications on top of the analytics data.
Deployment with Docker
The fastest way to test Ackee locally or deploy it to a server is through Docker. If you do not already have a MongoDB database running, you can start one as a standalone container.
Use the following command to spin up a MongoDB instance:
docker run -p 27017:27017 --name mongo mongoOnce the database is running, you can launch the Ackee container and link it to the database. The official repository also includes a Docker Compose configuration that orchestrates both the database and the application in one step. If you clone the repository and configure your credentials (such as username and password) in a .env file, you can start the entire stack with:
docker-compose upConnecting Your Websites
After the server is operational, you can access the web interface and log in. Ackee allows you to manage multiple domains from a single dashboard. For each domain you create, Ackee generates a unique tracking code.
You insert this tracking snippet into the HTML of your website. The script will securely report page views, referrers, and visit durations back to your Ackee server. The interface is designed to display these metrics clearly without overwhelming the user with unnecessary options.
Source Information
Related tools
More options with a similar category or technology profile.
ActivityWatch
The leading privacy-first, open-source automated time and application tracker.
Traggo
Tag-based time tracking server with visual statistics and dashboards.
Prefect
Prefect is a Python workflow orchestration framework.
Apache Airflow
Apache Airflow is a platform for authoring, scheduling, and monitoring batch workflows as Python DAGs.